Bald Chicks Are Sexy
by Basia Adami
Summary: A short story or a long flash fic about adjusting to the real world, from the perspective of a former coppertop.
1. Default Chapter

Bald Chicks Are Sexy  
Last night I dreamt I had hair, that old, familiar ponytail. Even when I woke up, I was my old self in my old life, but the dank air chilled my bones and woke me up. I'm getting tired of waking up, having to face reality all over again as if for the first time every morning. I just always took it for granted that in my dreams I looked like myself, but now, I dream my hair, long, blond hair like the kind on Barbies, romance novel heroines, and fairytales. Of course, the color was fake, but so was the rest of it. Somehow, none of that matters when I dream. I have the most delicious golden hair until I reach to touch it and find nothing but little spikes, little needles. They prick me, and I awaken.  
Can't sleep much, and when I do, I don't rest. Everything still feels like a dream, no different from the Matrix. Oh well, I've grown accustomed to doubt. Why should it leave now that I've found some answers and more questions?  
I can't pass anything reflective without giving myself a glance; it's sick masochism, I know. Still, I guess I'm trying to get used to the idea of that skinny, bald girl being myself. Skinny, ah! Skinny doesn't nearly describe it, try emaciated, but that doesn't quite work either. To think I used to want to be thinner, twisted irony there, but the whole time I was this. I look like a Holocaust survivor, like those pictures they always showed in school. Was there ever really a Holocaust? Hell if I know, but if people died, what does it matter if it physically took place or not? Death is still death. Come to think of it, there can't be any Holocaust survivors without a Holocaust. I touch my own sunken cheek. I'm out. I don't have to look like this anymore. I may and probably will die a skinny, bald girl, but I won't die a slave. I'm a survivor. Bull! There are no survivors; some people just live longer than others.  
I touch my head again. Funny that it should take me longer to get used to being bald than to having damn metal plugs on my body. Illogical, yes, but logic never really did much for me. If I'd trusted logic like I was supposed to I would still be floating around that pod. Yeah, lotta good logic did for any of us; it just kept us in that new kind of forced labor camp. "Arbeit Macht Freit." Now there's a lie. Truth makes freedom; nothing else will do it.  
I guess I look kinda like a punk chick. Down with the system! Yeah, I can see myself as one provided I don't have to pierce my tits. More metal in me, that's the last thing I need. Still, I think I would enjoy the additude. Punk chicks are sexy.  
Then, when my hair grows out just a little, I can look like Ripley in the third Aliens movie. Ripley's a cool movie chick, nice and badass, and she's a survivor too, kinda like me. Yeah, chicks with buzz cuts are sexy.  
Bald Chicks are sexy, bald chicks like me. I'm allowed a little vanity on account of the fact that I've just broke out of prison after being incarcerated just because I'm human. Survivors are sexy, those few people who live to see the outside world, those who can look back in and see the lies for what they really are, those who can say, "You tried to break me, but you failed." Come to think of it, there can't be any Holocaust survivors without a Holocaust. 


	2. version 2

Bald Chicks Are Sexy  
  
Last night I dreamt I had hair, that old, familiar ponytail. Even when I woke up, I was my old self in my old life, but the dank air chilled my bones and woke me up. I'm getting tired of waking up, having to face reality all over again as if for the first time every morning. I just always took it for granted that in my dreams I looked like myself, but now, I dream my hair, long, blond hair like the kind on Barbies, romance novel heroines, and fairytales. Of course, the color was fake, but so was the rest of it. Somehow, none of that matters when I dream. I have the most delicious golden hair until I reach to touch it and find nothing but little spikes, little needles. They prick me, and I awaken.   
  
Can't sleep much, and when I do I don't rest. Everything still feels like a dream, no different from the Matrix. Oh well, I've grown accustomed to doubt. Why should it leave now that I've found some answers and more questions?   
  
I can't pass anything reflective without giving myself a glance; it's sick masochism, I know. Still, I guess I'm trying to get used to the idea of that skinny, bald girl being myself. Skinny, ah! Skinny doesn't nearly describe it, try emaciated, but that doesn't quite work either. To think I used to want to be thinner, twisted irony there, but the whole time I was this. Wow, take this, Kate Moss. Eat your heart out, Twiggy. My ribs stick out so much they could kill somebody. I look like a Holocaust survivor, like those pictures they always showed in school.   
  
Was there ever really a Holocaust? Hell if I know, but if people died, what does it matter if it physically took place or not? Death is still death. Fuck philosophy. Death is still death. Loss is still loss. One day someone is there; the next day they're gone forever. That's what's real: life and death, the quick and the dead, the fatalities and survivors. Come to think of it, there can't be any Holocaust survivors without a Holocaust.   
  
I touch my own sunken cheek. I'm out. I don't have to look like this anymore. I may and probably will die a skinny, bald girl, but I won't die a slave. I'm a survivor. Bull! There are no survivors. Besides, it sounds so clichéd; it's been used in bad music and bad reality TV. Hah, reality TV, sick irony there. There is no reality TV, just like there are no survivors. Some people just live longer than others.   
  
I touch my head again. Funny that it should take me longer to get used to being bald than to having damn metal plugs on my body. Illogical, yes, but logic never really did much for me. If I'd trusted logic like I was supposed to I would still be floating around that pod. Yeah, lotta good logic did for any of us; it just kept us in that new kind of forced labor camp. "Arbeit Macht Freit." Now there's a lie. Truth makes freedom; nothing else will do it.   
  
I guess I look kinda like a punk chick. Down with the system! Yeah, I can see myself as one provided I don't have to pierce my tits. More metal in me, that's the last thing I need. Still, I think I would enjoy the attitude. Punk chicks are sexy.  
  
Then, when my hair grows out just a little, I can look like Ripley in the third Aliens movie. Ripley's a cool movie chick, nice and badass, and she's a survivor too, kinda like me. Yeah, chicks with buzz cuts are sexy.  
  
I don't feel very sexy or tough for that matter, despite all those hours of martial arts training. Sure, in the Construct I can kick higher than my entire high school cheerleading squad combined, but that's just as fake as the Matrix. I have hair in the Construct. My residual self-image looks nothing like my physical body. Which one's the real me? There's something about being in the Construct, having that power that's, well, freeing. I mean, all my life in the Matrix I knew somehow that I wasn't free, but in the Construct everything's different. The freest I've ever been was when I made the Jump for the first time. God, was that only yesterday? It feels like ages ago. I know it's not real, but when I wake up here and touch my bald head, I don't feel free anymore.   
  
Then how can I say that truth set me free? I just changed masters. I am now a slave to the truth, but I chose this master. I chose the truth. I chose knowledge. I chose to find my freedom in jumping and fighting like a badass movie chick in the Construct and then in the Matrix when I'm ready. It will have no power over me, the silly little bald chick who knows the truth. I'm taking control of my dreams; they're gonna be lucid like in that Creed song from a few years back. When I'm lucid, I think I'll decide to keep being bald.   
  
Bald Chicks are sexy, bald chicks like me. I think I'm allowed a little vanity. Survivors are sexy, those few people who live to see the outside world, those who can look back in and see the lies for what they really are, those who can say, "You tried to break me, but you failed." Come to think of it, there can't be any Holocaust survivors without a Holocaust. 


End file.
